


Peace In the Beyond

by Lhugy_for_short



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Afterlife, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, M/M, Memories, Not tagging for death of major character because they're already dead, heyoo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2019-01-09 18:01:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12281661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lhugy_for_short/pseuds/Lhugy_for_short
Summary: Though the past can never be altered, the 'beyond' offers both Noctis and Ardyn a chance to come to terms with the lives they've left behind.





	Peace In the Beyond

As he strode through the dusty halls of the Citadel, letting his fingers brush over the fading, peeling wallpaper, Noctis felt his heart grow heavy with memories. How many years had passed since he last stood here?  _ Really  _ stood here, not just in spirit but in body, as well. Already it seemed a lifetime ago - and perhaps it had been. He'd become a poor judge of mortal time as of late. 

Still, when he looked down the hall stretched out before him, he could picture the scenes of his childhood as though they were actually playing out before his eyes.

_ "Prince Noctis!" A young boy with chestnut hair and glasses too large for his delicate face emerges from behind a tapestry. "Noct, please come out. I'll get in trouble again if we're late!" Fretting, nearly in tears, the boy searches behind curtain after curtain, to no avail. "Noct, where are you…?"  _

The boy sat down to cry, and Noct favored him with a sad smile. "Sorry, Specs. I was hiding under my bed the whole time. I didn't mean for you to get in trouble, but thanks for forgiving me."

_ The scene changes. The young vision of Ignis is gone, replaced by the taller figure of a regal man. He's facing away, but it's obvious that he's smiling, laughing even, as his shoulders tremble with mirth. For a time, he waits. Until at last a small child, barely able to walk upright, teeters out from between his feet. "Attaboy, Noct," Regis says, giggling while he watches his son take his first steps.  _

"Dad…." Another pang hit him and Noct at last turned away. Sometimes, this place was filled with too many memories to bear. 

But as he whirled around, Noct found himself facing a different figure. He, too, was tall, but with deep red hair and a haunting smile. This one was not surrounded by the same sourceless light as the others - not a memory then, but the real Ardyn. 

Noct’s heart quickened.

"Thought I might find you here," Ardyn sighed as he took a step forward. Then another. "They say the place where one died always calls to them. Draws them back."

It was Noctis’ turn to sigh. "Guess that’s part of it. But I think…when I come here, it's to forget death. I want to remember what it was like to be alive." 

Suddenly, the walls seemed to shiver, shudder; dust and debris shook loose from the top down, gradually fading away and leaving pristine marble in it's place. Light from nowhere and everywhere at once illuminated the hall, and if Noct listened closely enough he could almost hear the bustle of activity from the days when the Citadel was filled with life. 

"Thanks," he grinned over his shoulder, and Ardyn exaggerated a bow. 

"The least I can do for you, King."

"You know, you don't have to call me that." Noct favored Ardyn with a smile as he closed the distance and wrapped him in his arms. "Neither of us is a king anymore."

"Mm, true. Funny, isn't it?" The stretch of a tired smile against his cheek. "What I always wanted, and what you spent all those years trying to be. In the end, what did it matter?" 

"Beats the hell outta me. Come on, let’s see what else is on." Noct took Ardyn by the hand and together they descended the steps of the Citadel. Where they were going, he wasn't yet sure, but he had a feeling they would find it along the way.  

He was right. Just beyond the gates, the pair stepped out not into the heart of Insomnia, but into a place far older. Thatched roofs and dirt roads, children playing and laughing as they chased strange little winged creatures in the garden. Noct thought he recognized them, but it wasn't until Ardyn let out a chuckle at his side that his suspicions were confirmed. 

"Moogles! Lovely little creatures. It really has been an age." 

"Where are we?"

"It would appear," Ardyn smiled sidelong at him. "That we've found my hometown. No place you've ever heard of, and destroyed long before your precious city was ever built on it's bones. Ah, look there - !"

_ In the middle of the path, a tiny, pudgy black ball of feathers streaks toward them. Hot on it's tail is a young man, a teen from the looks of him, with lanky arms and hair like a wildfire. He looks frantic, cursing under his breath as the chocobo eludes his grasp again and again. "Get back here, bird brain! I swear I'll make you into a pie when I catch you!!" _

Noctis looked insulted. Ardyn grinned. "Oh, come now, I didn't  _ really  _ cook him. He was my favorite companion, after all."

"Hard to tell with you."

"Ouch." 

But he merely smiled and squeezed Noct’s hand tighter. "I suppose I'd like to show you one more place, if you'd be so kind as to humor me?"

"Sure. Not like I’ve got anywhere else to be.”

Noctis took in the view as he strode alongside Ardyn through the quaint village. None of the people who passed turned to look at them - they were merely memories after all - but it felt...lonely. Perhaps there was a sadness that lingered over the place in death. Or perhaps the heaviness that hung in the air came from Ardyn himself, from the pain he had carried with him all those two thousand years and projected onto even his fondest memories. Either way, it filled Noct with a nameless longing, and he found himself drawn closer to the taller man’s side. 

“Almost there, Highness,” came the familiar voice next to his ear. Noct glanced up, but Ardyn’s gaze was fixed ahead of them, a mysterious light playing in the golden orbs of his eyes. 

The houses gradually fell away. A forest began to grow up around them, the trunks of the trees stretching and twisting as with the passage of a hundred years. Beneath their feet, the ground grew soft; grass, flowers, a dark green moss that seemed to grab at the soles of Noct’s shoes and make his steps slow, heavy. The air grew thick with the scent of the ancient woods. 

“Ardyn,” he began, but the touch of a single finger to his lips silenced him. Ardyn smiled and pointed into the clearing. 

There was a stone. No, not just a stone, something carved  _ out _ of the stone - like a small statue or, Noct realized, a shrine. Crudely cut, chipped and worn with time, yet at the top he could make out the shape of two feathered wings spread out around a sun-like disc. Noctis recognized it as the ancient symbol of the Hexatheon. 

No doubt about it. This was an altar to the Six. 

“What are we…?”

“ _ Shh. _ ” As he squeezed his hand, Ardyn’s eyes fell closed. A rustle, movement on the far side of the clearing, and Noct’s attention was drawn away once more.

_ From out of the trees stumbles a figure. He’s young, perhaps thirty, his red-brown hair long and disheveled around his hollow face, matted in parts with dirt or dried blood. Around his shoulders he clutches a tattered shawl, and his haunted, yellow eyes dart in every direction as he moves quickly into the clearing.  _

_ At last, he appears certain he’s alone. Turning his gaze on the stone altar, he approaches, kneels down, bows his head. Speaks in a voice far more tired than one befitting his age. “You must be laughing to see me here. Perhaps…. Perhaps You don’t even notice my presence anymore.” His shoulders tremble as if he’s fighting back tears. “There was a time I came to You with anything. When You cared for me as one of Your own…. But now. Now look at me.”  _

_ He drops his head into his hands as his body is overcome. Shadows flicker beneath his pale skin, twitch and bulge under the surface, out of control. The man sobs as he attempts to once again lift his head. “Help me! Please! Why won’t You help me? Why are You punishing me!!”  _

Noct couldn’t stand to watch any longer. His own eyes stinging, he turned from the scene as the sound of Ardyn’s strained voice echoed around the clearing. It felt cruel, standing helplessly by as the man he once knew as his mortal enemy begged for mercy, his words falling on the deaf ears of the very gods who had betrayed him. 

“Is this what you brought me here to see?” Deep blue eyes were pained, questioning as they searched yellow-gold. “Why…?”

“I wasn’t always a monster.” Ardyn had drawn back from him, was looking down at his hands. Between them he held a scarf - the same fabric as the shawl that had been wrapped around the vision of himself. “For many long years, I tried to repent for whatever the gods had found lacking within me. Surely I was to blame. Surely they could undo the curse.” When he looked up at Noctis, his smile was sad, and for the first time there seemed to be tears forming in the corners of his eyes. “But they never answered me again, not until it was far too late to beg for forgiveness.”   
Quiet settled around them, a delicate calm in the wake of Ardyn’s confession. It made sense now, why he’d led Noct here, and why he’d chosen to wait until this moment. It had been Noct’s own words that had opened the door for him - forgetting death, remembering life. For Ardyn, who had long been consumed by the demons of revenge, there was little left to celebrate about his mortality. Only this, the vision of the  _ human being _ he had once been, was worth redeeming. 

With a heavy smile, Noctis spread his arms. An invitation, one which Ardyn accepted after only a moment’s hesitation. He stepped into the embrace, sighed as gentle warmth embraced him, let his head come to rest on Noct’s shoulder. 

“You’ve already paid for your mistakes,” that familiar voice whispered into his ear. Tears began to well behind the surface and spilled forth freely. Ardyn clung to Noct’s frame as the centuries of pain drained away from him, the burden eased by the light of compassion, of love. “And you  _ are _ forgiven. If not by the gods, then by your King.”

 


End file.
